Offering your Mass Intentions

Rule number 947 says:

“Even the semblance of trafficking or trading

is to be entirely excluded from Mass offerings.”

It is vitally important to understand that a mass offering given for a personal intention is not buying a mass and it isn’t paying the priest as if it it were his personal money for having said the mass. It is an offering made in thanksgiving for the intention.

As your parish priest, like any good priest, the mass would be offered for the intention asked for, whether there was a money offering or not.

However, the diocese have asked me to change the way mass offerings are organised so that they are more in-line with diocesan policy. As it is not a personal payment to the priest I am not allowed to tell you where to give your offering, therefore the 3 suggested charities CAFOD, The Sisters of Mercy at Mutomo Hospital, in Kenya, and The Infant Jesus Sisters School in Nigeria will no longer be on the mass offering sheets. (We will find other ways of supporting these worthy charities).

The mass offering can only go into a restricted parish fund set aside for the relief of the clergy, as directed by the finance committee. Having a married parish priest with a wife and 3 children inevitably puts a greater demand on that restricted fund. I would like to repeat that a mass intention will willingly be said with or without an offering, but diocesan guidelines sets a usual mass offering at £10, although it can be less and it can be more than this given individual financial circumstances or how the Spirit moves them.

Another change is that there can only be one mass offering per mass, I am not allowed to offer more than one person’s intention at any given mass. Please bear with me as I implement the changes I’ve been asked to put into place, it will mean that certain dates cannot be guaranteed and your intention might need to go to the nearest available date, which might well be a weekday mass.

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